A 'Choose Yourself' Way to Become an Artist | Chase Jarvis

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show All right, we'll get started. There are so many ways I want to introduce this guy

[00:00:21] I'll just say real quickly Chase Jarvis one of the best photographers in the world also the founder of creative live Which is all these masterclasses on creativity peak performance everything. It's if you haven't watched creative live

[00:00:36] You've got to check out just all of the hundred percent of the episodes these hide there I've been on creative live right or a version of it. Yeah, yeah And so so this is Chase Jarvis

[00:00:46] You just wrote a book called creative calling which I really think is a bible of creativity Like I read and reread I started folding pages And then I realized by the way, I realized I was folding every page

[00:00:59] So then I started like outlining but I didn't always have a pen around and so I don't know I just ended up essentially realizing every page is gonna get folded and I'll have to figure it out as I go along here

[00:01:10] But first off, I have to give you a big thank you That's three years overdue when I was on your show the first thing I asked was how can I be a better photographer? I had never really been a photographer, but I was always intrigued

[00:01:27] I love looking at photography and I wanted to learn what you would say and You said to me Find out what kind figure out what kind of people you like to look at and I said to you right away in response sad people and then You said okay

[00:01:46] Go outside find someone who's sad or you like their expression on their face and go up to them and say hey Can I take your photograph? Which was I thought was an interesting way to do it as opposed to just taking their photograph because there's that extra

[00:02:01] There's that extra challenge there Which upon thinking about it was interesting because That proves you really want to do something artistic if you force yourself that extra challenge of going up to them and

[00:02:14] Asking them hey, can I take your photograph? So actually can I show you the first photo I took please? That day please do then later. I put it on on Instagram I remember I was in a restaurant shortly after and I saw a guy

[00:02:28] Who I was in a hotel restaurant and I didn't know if this guy was traveling or foreign or he just looked Kind of sad and intense so I took his picture and then for for about a month I started taking pictures like that every single day and

[00:02:45] You know not that I Gave up but I just moved on to different things But but how do that? Well, how that process feel like oh, I loved it And you know other people I noticed other people I knew like in my

[00:02:58] Different communities I would interact with and so on would start posting. Hey everybody start checking out James's Photo of the day because I was doing it every single day. I would challenge myself to do it every single day Let me find the first one Oh, yeah

[00:03:15] This guy he was just sitting in the restaurant and I went right up to him That's amazing Wow, this was the first this is the first one following your advice exactly I'm good. I went up to him

[00:03:28] I went up to him and I said can I please take your photograph and he said in some kind of accent you know sure and I went up really close and And took it and I really photograph I think that actually ended up being the best one

[00:03:44] Out of the month, but then I started doing it every day for quite some time like You'll you'll appreciate some of these like Like like there was this one I was just walking by Times Square and saw this situation to people kind of like lying on the ground

[00:04:03] No, not as good as that first one though. I think in composition Compositionally it's not as strong as the first one this one that I'm looking at now But take for example like that is definitely there's emotion in this photograph Yeah

[00:04:16] And part of that there's this human connection component especially because you said you wanted to photograph people and You don't have to coach them necessarily that sort of manufacturing a photograph but just connecting with them even for a moment is It elevates the photograph dramatically

[00:04:33] I mean, this is a secret that I think most people wouldn't acknowledge and for example when you asked me and it was an Intuitive answer. I mean I remember you saying hey before it was like I was ten seconds

[00:04:44] I was just finishing my intro and you're like wait a minute I have a question before we start and I was like James We've already started news that no no, how do I be take better photographs?

[00:04:51] And it was just my intuition that said connection and that photograph that you showed me is Evidence and it's also evidence of another thing that we're all creative Wily and you know this about yourself. We can talk about in a second

[00:05:03] but to me your ability to pick up a photograph or to pick up a simple technique and Executed on day one how many hours after we did our podcast like to me. That's that's remarkable

[00:05:15] Well, well, I really what you just said was very interesting connection because let's take that and I have 30 photographs here But we don't obviously we're not gonna go through that but but in that first photograph I was really feeling

[00:05:31] Empathy for this man on a journey who seemed either sad or lonely or whatever Whereas in that second photograph where these kind of like no connection wrong kids or whatever We're just lying on the sidewalk passed out

[00:05:45] I did not I felt to myself instead of instead of feeling any kind of empathy towards them I felt to myself this will make a good picture, which is the wrong way to think I think that disconnects that that's like the circuit breaker for the creativity

[00:05:58] You know you have the circuit is that back and forth Empathy and connection that you develop with the subject whether you're writing or photographing Or even doing comedy or playing a game

[00:06:09] It's that back and forth you have to keep that circuit open and that's where the creativity is so true And then there was another thing I noticed too, which is that when I took a good photograph

[00:06:19] And let's say I posted it on Instagram. I wouldn't care at all like zero How many likes it got like I could I had negative care? Whereas if I took something and I'm like oh

[00:06:32] I want this to be a good photo then I care and it's the same thing with writing when I write something And I finish that one sentence and I know this is good. I'll post it I'll never look again at the likes or the shares or whatever

[00:06:44] But if I post something and I'm like oh, I I hope this is good Then I kid then I need the outside validation to tell me and then the creativity is I know that I just know that the article is not as the writing is not as good

[00:06:57] And so on so true so I think that there's we have these internal measures and we also have Judgment that we carry around with everything and I think when you're in your purest

[00:07:10] Element of creativity, you're not actually judging. You can't be judging and creative at the same time That's a great point wait, can I write this down? Do I have a book? Because I don't think you mentioned exactly that in those words in the book

[00:07:26] Having read the book several times over now. I really yeah, I appreciate that man and it's fun to see a Really dog eared version of your book out in the world when you're judging or you can't be judging and creating at the same time

[00:07:40] Yep, but but but riffing on that You do need to Assess In you particularly well We're always in a learning phase so as you're kind of in the Hi, that the steepest part of the learning curve

[00:07:57] You need to have some sort of internal feedback so you can improve sure what's the difference between that and judging One is when you're creating and then when you stop creating you can judge

[00:08:06] But you can't actually be in that moment at the same time or you can be but that's to me That's not like creative flow for example, right creative flow is a good way to put it because

[00:08:16] So so in elements of flow you kind of lose sense of time you lose sense of other Let's say other paths to live your life. You're just focused on what you're doing because you have this enormous pleasure and maybe

[00:08:30] What when do you think at what point in learning the creative process? Do you do you have that flow that lasts after the creative Project that creative project is finished, but you still don't care about the validation

[00:08:47] Sometimes you do care about it out here for many reasons and I think because we're human right and we've been You know, we need to exercise judgment in so many areas of our life, right?

[00:08:57] Like how to behave how to behave with others how to behave with their self self talk all these things that we That where judgment is is helpful and in shaping who you are who you want to be and then to be able to turn

[00:09:07] That off in the moment of creativity. That's a that's a muscle. That's a that's a habit that we can get into So to me there's this it's it's not Hard to understand why it's confusing for our body and for our brain

[00:09:21] But it is necessary to turn that off I think to do your best work think about what you just said about writing earlier like when you you're done writing something He's put you know you period on the last sentence and you're happy to share it

[00:09:33] And it's because you know intuitively and there's the book is huge on intuition as you know like this in is starting to trust yourself know yourself authentically And and to me that's a muscle that we develop

[00:09:46] I think you know if we go to the 30,000 foot level for a second the book has a couple really key principles one is That everyone is creative and it's not going to be a surprise for your audience

[00:09:57] I mean I listened to your show you talk about creativity a lot stand-up is improv It's like there's so many elements of you and your personality and in your community here on the show that know this

[00:10:07] But we also forget it sometimes and so it doesn't hurt to put that as a stake in the ground So principle one is that we're all creative Principle two that is this creativity is a habit. It's not a skill. It's a way of being in the world

[00:10:21] It's a way of operating. It's a process not a product and It's a muscle That's what I mean by habit. It can develop it. I feel like I feel like you're taking the words out of my mouth

[00:10:33] I think that's really important that it's a it's a muscle. It's not You know, yes, there is some component of talent and nature with with everything I think but you know if you don't if you were kind of

[00:10:50] You know bicycle accident day and we're stuck in bed for a few weeks You would literally need physical therapy to walk again because your leg muscles would atrophy

[00:10:59] I think you don't realize and I think this is a very important message is that and you and you you kind of solidify And this book you have to exercise that creativity muscle every day or it will atrophy and I think a lot of people who

[00:11:12] Who get fooled by not fooled but they go through the school system. They go through the normal Scripting of life the normal script of how to live your life. They forget to we all excise this muscle

[00:11:25] Yeah, we all do and that's why I this book is not about shaming people into being more creative Yeah, I don't feel bad the way I just said no

[00:11:31] I think it's fair because it that is very a lot of books do that and I worked really hard to make that not true But that's second principle. So the first principles everyone's creative. We all have it natively. It's our birthright

[00:11:41] It's what separates us from every other species on the planet thing to that it's a muscle it's a habit it's a process not a product and that by you know, the developing a muscle the way you do that is through using it and

[00:11:54] Acknowledging it right you when you go to the gym like okay cool I'm gonna spend some time working on my Physicality which is an important part where if you get in a bike accident like I need to spend some time on recover

[00:12:03] So acknowledging that creativity is a process that it's a muscle and it needs strengthening the third principle assuming you buy one and two Is and to me this is the this is the aha is that by creating in small ways every day

[00:12:18] By having a habit and just acknowledging it does not have to mean you move to Paris Start smoking cigarettes and and wears the beret and gets a new friends and all these things that are very creative

[00:12:27] No, just by creating in small ways every day building a business making a meal baking a cake How you express yourself? It's in those small exercises every day That you actually realize that you have agency to create your life

[00:12:42] They're the same muscles the same muscles that you use to write in the morning to practice stand-up comedy Those are the same exact muscles that you use to create the arc of your life and to me this was this was my like 20-year synthesis of oh my god

[00:12:58] What creating in small ways it helps me understand that I have agency in Creating the biggest things whether it's a book that takes many years to write or ultimately Your life so to me the like those three principles and you know can dive into there's plenty to uncork

[00:13:15] Yeah, yeah, we're all saying of course we're going to unpack just to me that those are Those are things that you could understand, you know after I mentioned them you can stand back again It makes sense But why are these like the why isn't that not a central?

[00:13:32] Concept in our culture to value and appreciate creativity. In fact, it's just the opposite We're sold this narrative that some people are creatives and some people aren't that creativity is a nice to have It's kind of like a oh

[00:13:43] Oh, he's so creative and it sort of put in air quotes and but the reality is Not as late not only is creativity not naive not only is creativity not just a nice to have

[00:13:53] This is as fundamental as nutrition as exercise. It is literally the building like it's it's the muscle that can allow us to do everything So so why do you think it's not? Appreciated in our culture the way you just described because I think creativity was

[00:14:29] Early on in culture was associated specifically and only with art art equaled creativity What we understand now is that all these other processes building a business?

[00:14:41] Again raising a family. These are all aspects where if you if you subscribe to the definition of creativity that I put forward in the book Which is just you're combining two things that used to not be together

[00:14:51] you putting them together in a way that's new and useful and In in pop culture when we try and associate something For example creativity with with just art well art to me, of course

[00:15:05] I have my own view and aren't I think it powers the world and it's you know, it's incredibly empowering inspiring and shows us What's possible but if you expand the definition of creativity to include as I just did right there

[00:15:19] It's basically everything. It's the building block of everything, you know To me that all sudden gets really interesting that the biggest the solutions to the biggest problems that the world will ever have and ever know Access to clean drinking water humanitarian crises all these have fundamentally some creativity

[00:15:36] required in order to create a solution and even on even on just like a human personal level like if you kind of step out of the box a little bit during each day and

[00:15:48] Experiment with doing some creativity. Yeah, I just think it leads to a happier richer life for sure There's more depth there and then again, I don't want to get too Too analytical or too academic or pedantic

[00:16:07] Because we all know what creativity is and you just ask and this here Here's just simple litmus test ask any first grade classroom who wants to come up at the front of the room and draw me a picture

[00:16:17] Every single hand goes up because we think of kids like oh, it's so cute They want to just because we're we're self-expression machines. We're we're literally creating machines. That's what we do

[00:16:28] We go around and we say okay, am I gonna go right or am I gonna go left? You're creating the path of your day just in that simple Decision and you can look at that first grade classroom and see the raw

[00:16:38] This beautiful energy that we are creating machines And then you ask that same question of a say a sixth grade class and then again, you know

[00:16:46] when they're 20 and it's dramatically reduced and that is like half as many hands go up in sixth grade and then just a few Souls are brave enough at the end of the schooling system to get up on stage and do some stand-up or whatever

[00:16:59] The thing is and that's because not because of who we are in a we know that from the first grade classroom We have a culture that starts to prescribe Bunches of shoulds and odds and musts to our world. Yeah, and again, I don't think I used to think

[00:17:16] There was just bad motives behind society doing that like okay, let's prepare An army for the industrial revolution or for an actual army in which case you don't want them to be

[00:17:28] Creative you want them to fill a slot on the assembly line or be a soldier and follow orders. I used to Kind of think that that was the ulterior motive of society But there's another motive which is that society also wants to protect people

[00:17:41] so you want people to grow up and be adults and be able to feed themselves and kind of all learning the same skill sets allows Allows people to do that you can get a job working in the factory and feed your family and so on but

[00:17:58] Creativity is sort of Left behind you have to leave something behind and creativity is the easiest thing to leave behind And you know we got kind of got right into it I want to I want to do a little bit more

[00:18:09] Intro on you you had you've had such a fascinating story But I want to I want to ask this this one question first and we'll get into more later, but recently I've made kind of a switch in my own thinking about

[00:18:22] Creativity so there's like a just like you there's several different areas. I'd like to be creative at I I Write I write every day or try to write every day I do other things and recently I've gotten more into the

[00:18:35] What what now I've read in the philosophy of your book just thinking it I used to say to myself if I don't write every day I'm gonna lose the ability to write and I would panic even if it was the end of the day

[00:18:46] And I haven't yet written, you know my thousand or two thousand words But now I realize I'm a little bit more relaxed and I realize if you just are creative every day and do something That's creatively satisfying every day That's Almost good enough. I might not improve immediately

[00:19:02] More skills as a writer But I've been doing it for 30 years. Okay, it's good to be just have that exercise that muscle every day is Important it's super true and I had to forgive myself on uncertain days

[00:19:15] I forgive you too. You don't need to hear it from me but I think that's what one of the reasons it's so easy to say that is because you've mastered Writing James. You're you're a master. You've been doing it for 30 years you've got way more than 10,000 hours and

[00:19:29] Once this you know, I talked about this to me learning the connection between learning and creativity is fascinating And we talk a lot about it in the book that that when you are when you've mastered something you It's more than just it's like the distance between

[00:19:45] 9 and 10 is not just one. It's really close. It's like it's psychologically It's less than one it's so close to 10 and now that you've mastered something you can actually you understand what it takes

[00:19:57] To master something and so you're actually further along in every other discipline because you've deconstructed what it takes to be a world-class writer and you can start to apply that Lends to lots of other things and you can't actually there's no shortcuts

[00:20:12] But you can take the most direct path for you that you could possibly take because you've deconstructed What it took for you to master something that it was a combination of hard work and deconstruction and Joining communities and all these other aspects when you've mastered something

[00:20:27] It's easier to master the next thing and you end up getting a lot of benefit From play in other areas. So don't be so hard on yourself. You've mastered writing this creative cross training cooking meals

[00:20:40] Practicing stand-up comedy whatever it is travel adventure those things are only fueling your writing in a way that you That benefits it But did you ever go through that like for instance when you started your creative live company? Sure

[00:20:53] Why don't you describe what creative live is and then I'm gonna ask you about about Relationship between that and your other stuff. Sure. So creative live is the world's largest platform specifically For learning for creators and entrepreneurs It's where people like Richard Branson, bernie brown, tim ferris

[00:21:10] aria huffington and all kinds of other pilots are Grammy Oscar-winning folks go to teach and share their their information And so it's an online learning platform. You can buy individual classes are subscribed and we have Tens of millions of people have used the platform

[00:21:29] It's a community an active community of millions and we've There's a free product as well You can go there and watch anything 24 hours a day seven days a week if you don't have any money

[00:21:37] And we've given away billions and billions of minutes of free video and we're not 10 years old And I still sort of feel like we're just getting started. So so as you were starting this and even to this day

[00:21:48] Did you ever feel like oh my gosh? I'm not doing as much Uh of those amazing photographs I did 15 years earlier Are people going to forget about me as a photographer like do these thoughts of doubt ever across your mind because you've kind of built

[00:22:03] Your creative you laid the bricks of your kind of professional creativity on on photography. Yeah. Yeah, and this is I'm trying to portray what I think is a natural progression like I believe that getting into something that at a depth first of all

[00:22:19] You know how we get into the things that we're we know We're supposed to be doing in this world like paying attention to our intuition for me photography spoke to me from early early age

[00:22:28] Rather than getting into that lineage just know that just so that to answer your question I want to go back too far but and and so through a bunch of

[00:22:36] missteps and pursuing a bunch of things that everybody else wanted for me spending hundreds of thousands of student loans and Basically making every mistake you can make in the book. I found a way through some trauma and through um Through luck

[00:22:48] Like I got into photography and I sort of was able to make the thing that I had always thought I was really curious about photography I was able to make my way in that world and when as soon as I stepped on that path

[00:22:59] I talk about hearing your calling and stepped on that path things just got easier not only did my career in photography accelerate but life Felt better it got easier. It's like the the the skids were greased and and when I mastered

[00:23:14] Photography over the course of however many 10,000 hours or whatever your acknowledgement would be for mastering something I found That I had an inspiration and a desire to continue to Move and explore and grow and that came with just like every new anything

[00:23:32] a lot of fear a lot of Self-doubt a lot of frustration and it was exactly the same thing with creative live. That was an entirely new world for me I even developed some iphone apps It was sort of like an interim stage between being a photographer

[00:23:47] That was my on ramp to the startup world is I did the first iphone app that allowed you to take pictures Add cool effects called filters and then share that on social media and then up being a Photography is pretty popular today

[00:24:01] But that helped me understand that creativity could be scaled using technology And that was a hybrid step between there and creative live and I had all kinds of mistakes Along the way. So it was a fearful learning new things. Yes

[00:24:12] Was did I make a lot of mistakes? Of course I did but and were you feel fearful of losing your connection to your roots in photography? I was To me, I never left photography I just stopped doing it for

[00:24:25] Nike and apple and a lot of the biggest brands in the world and hanging in galleries and stuff like that because I really had and and I still feel this I have a deep connection to photography. It underpins everything that I do

[00:24:37] Um, I'm a visual learner. I think photography is its own language So I don't feel like I've left it But I used everything that I learned in that universe to try and Experiment and step into some of the new areas for for which I was curious inspired and

[00:24:53] Again motivated to continue to try and have impact you know While you were talking like you you kind of like touch your heart like in terms of you know, when you were talking about which you know

[00:25:06] When you started doing photography you realized this was the right path for you and then it's kind of that feeling of each step of the way where I don't know how to describe you like where the

[00:25:19] Where the fire is lit and where it's not lit. So for instance, you started taking photographs But then you you got involved in another thing that you were interested in which let's call it extreme sports or

[00:25:30] snowboarding skateboarding whatever and that kind of fueled the fire more. So suddenly You know combining these two things You became very quickly to the top, you know the front of the line in terms of the best photographers of

[00:25:44] These types of things and that was led completely you called it intuition But again, you're like touching you were touching your heart So let's some fire is lit that that points you in that direction and I'll give you a simple counter example

[00:25:59] I have uh, I had and have an opportunity to do A tv show about something and I had pitched it. I'd gone through all the the steps everybody was interested you know networks were interested are interested and

[00:26:13] But I I stopped for a second because I realized there's something wrong like I feel like There's something making me unhappy about the amount of work This is going to require for me and why and that normally wouldn't bother me

[00:26:25] But why does it bother me and I realized I had an ulterior motive I simply wanted to do this to increase fame level not that I loved it And so I've been kind of shifting direction since then and I think it's important to realize

[00:26:44] You know what what is the reason You're making what are the reasons you're making a certain decision? You're going down a certain path and you need that that flame a little bit

[00:26:54] You know not even a little bit. I think it's one of the most important things in our culture And sadly to me and one of the reasons I needed to write the book It was because we need to acknowledge that and imagine

[00:27:05] It's not just you James our entire culture is very busy for not always malevolent reasons people have good reasons that they want you to do the thing That's safe and predictable and expected and I call it beige. It's right down the middle and two things are true one

[00:27:24] That that is a lie So the two things are true is one that that that is a lie It comes sometimes from bad motives, but usually because people actually care about you

[00:27:35] And the people who don't want to see you take risks are your parents and your high school counselor and your teachers and your friends And it's because they care about you when putting yourself out there can be risky

[00:27:45] Now all all the other things that can go along with failure. We understand that so first of all That whole thing that you were just sold as a lie second of all and to me this is the part that I think is Um interesting maybe is that

[00:28:00] it is It's not safe what they're telling you to do they think they're coaching you to do the safe thing But now is the riskiest time in human history to do the thing that has always been safe Right because the world is changing so fast the um

[00:28:19] If you don't have a love and a connection and a passion for what you're doing You're going to be isolated. You're going to be lonely. You're going to be sick

[00:28:28] And in a in a world where we do now have access to tools that we never had that would be free We do have the democratization of a lot of the platforms for example

[00:28:39] You used to have to you know be judged by gatekeepers whether they're the gallerist or the The movie producer or the the publishing house to decide if you could write a book or just express yourself Now it's the first time in human history that those gatekeepers are

[00:28:53] Not in a position of power or less power than they had before so Not only the people that told you those things they were wrong

[00:29:02] And they were they were wrong to think that you would be safe because it's not safe to do the thing that everybody else wants The safest thing in your journey is to be inexcusably Unapologetically you right well think about it from your from your own experience

[00:29:18] You know you you you took this off beaten path of photography and then you further Took your own path by combining it with your interest in Again, I'll call it exports or streamsports whatever you want to call it

[00:29:32] And it's that intersection that this that your passions took you that allowed you to sort of You know comfortably develop the skills and become the best in that Intersection for sure and I think I think that's very interesting that because then by following that inner flame

[00:29:52] And and making turns several times along the way because it's not You know you didn't take the same path every photographer takes no you didn't you probably didn't take the same path Every photographer who likes extreme sports takes this probably still was a few more

[00:30:07] Turns that took you to your specific location that only where only you would live And that's where you're able to find kind of the the pot of gold and not that it's you did it for monetary reasons

[00:30:19] But that is how you monetize is when you when you are able to take this passion and creativity and use This this intuition or this flow or this flip whatever you want to call it to to Find the place where unique and that's

[00:30:35] You know usually there's a way to monetize at that point, which is what you found. Yeah, and Several ways to monetize you've you've you've spent you you spent the past 10 years finding several ways to monetize for sure

[00:30:46] everything that you said is is absolutely true and and I think the part that is Um, the only layer that I would add is that this is not what we're taught this is and it's because it's inconvenient for the school system

[00:30:59] It's inconvenient for our economic engine for employment to teach us these things And again, there's no malevolent puppeteer that's telling you that's trying to you know channel you into working at the factory But the reality is that our entire culture

[00:31:14] The images we see the parents that we have the peers our teachers our counselors They for for reasonably good reasons that you and I already articulated They're not meaning harm, but they're giving you advice that is outdated

[00:31:30] And there was there was a time where that was the right advice If you go to this college, you'll get a good job and if you get a good job You work there for 40 years get the gold watch and everybody will be happy. That's fiction. That's gone

[00:31:40] That doesn't happen anymore And I would question whether it ever happened There was a time where in industrial revolution and what productions and factories and In schools were that were that function at a very high level, but the reality is that now

[00:31:55] More than ever before it's an open field and we've all Now also more than ever before have an opportunity to carve our own path And what that requires is a whole new set of dialogues internally and externally my book's trying to be that external dialogue

[00:32:10] And it's hope it hopes to be able to guide that internal dialogue because the answer is about should you pursue Stand up comedy. Should you should I pursue photography? What part of photography would I do it? How would I do it? All those things are internal

[00:32:23] Right and think about it like even asking those questions You can't think your way to an answer you could only Do things and see if oh was the flame lit. Nope. Okay. I'm gonna try I'm gonna do Something else. I'm gonna in and I think

[00:32:40] Experimentation is is a large part of this huge huge part, you know like you mentioned earlier 10 000 hours It's almost I've also heard people refer to it as 10 000 experiments Like you have to do something each day to kind of guide you in your own unique way

[00:32:54] But let's take it a step back. So we know Every day creative is important But like let's take you for with photography. How did you how did you initially start? Developing the skills How do you start recognizing that internal flame? You know

[00:33:15] And what it means because it means something different at each level like in the very beginning when you have no skills It means this is cool. I want to do this. I want to get better at this

[00:33:25] I don't care what people think. I'm gonna do it. That's what it means the very first time you feel it Yeah, so what what happened? How did you start to go down the path? How did you develop the meta learning skills to get better?

[00:33:51] So i'm gonna do two things i'm gonna put one thing out there which is A statement that I also worked very hard on the book is that I find books that give you the perfect path from a to z

[00:34:02] Are totally useless because nothing like all these processes whether you're building a business or trying to improve yourself Or whatever nonfiction book you're reading that pretends to have it all figured out

[00:34:12] Life does not mimic that life is messy. And so when you ask me what my path was I want to be sure to identify that I I've I can now deconstruct what I think a good Model is to follow

[00:34:26] But I don't come from a place of holier than now I mentioned earlier all my missteps and you know, I did the first iphone app Way before instagram that that did the same thing instagram is basically a lift and stamp copy of best camera

[00:34:38] And i'm not the billionaire. I lost a billion Like so there's plenty of we're definitely going to talk about that as well There's plenty of mistakes along the way and so um in Discovering what I know now. I just want everybody at home who's listening to know that

[00:34:52] It's all going to be imperfect and because i'm talking On a podcast with you. I don't want to pretend i've got it all figured out And by the way, I think that's important

[00:35:02] That's a good way to kind of a good litmus test on on self-help books, which is um I prefer self-help books that are like mad libs versus uh, how to yeah, so So yes Physical being healthy physically is important, but then it's a fill in the blanks

[00:35:20] Yeah for everybody it's going to be different some people will eat keto some people will be vegetarian Some people will go to the gym. Some people will walk up and down the stairs So so for everybody it's a more like at some point

[00:35:31] There's a fill in the blanks component and I think the more of that The better else it's just like well, okay, then you write in your gratitude journal then you Juice kale and all that stuff's like too hard. So I get anxious

[00:35:44] Yeah, I just started a list of the things that you have to do in order to fill in the blank Yeah, I get it but but but but you know, I do think how you describe your process. Sure. We'll extrapolate

[00:35:54] Of course, there's no question. That's why I it's just a qualifier, but I do think that that there's uh Value in answering the question and talking about my my individual process so um, I remember very distinctly as if it was yesterday um

[00:36:11] My second grade classroom. I loved telling stories I would perform magic whenever anyone would give me the time of day and I could just capture two or three people in the hallway I had I carried around little magic tricks and uh

[00:36:26] And I loved to draw and write I used to draw comics I had my own comic his name was Clyde and I he looked like a combination of garfield and grover and um, and I drew comics and Then I remember at the student teacher conference

[00:36:43] I overheard my mom and my second grade teacher talking and my second grade teacher said You know chase is much better at sports than he is at art And I remember in that moment as if it was yesterday That's a horrible thing to say right and

[00:36:59] But she said it with a smile and they were talking about something innocent and rather innocuous I heard it in passing. I don't think she meant it And like it's not like I was horrible at art, but

[00:37:11] It stuck with me and it was clear to me that how My personal path at that point changed. I mean it was in an instant And I didn't like not do whatever if we had an art class I did the projects, but I began it shifted my identity

[00:37:27] from creator or creative To oh, I think I need to be a jock if I'm going to find acceptance Well and also right so it depends on where your center of Kind of personal gravity is for sure

[00:37:40] So if it's outside of you if it's somewhere in between you your mom and your teacher And and sports is kind of Accepted center of gravity then that's where you're going to gravitate for sure And I did that and so, you know why I'm recounting this is

[00:37:54] A how valuable and important it is to understand the words that we use labels matter And we're not all a little special precious snowflakes. We're durable creatures And I'm living proof of that because I just went on a bent that now for basically 20 years or 18 years

[00:38:13] Virtually alienated me from my creativity I dab I got to connect the two one time in my teens when I really not one time but for a One path in my teens included

[00:38:29] The skateboarding and this is where I sort of tapped into that action sports culture and punk rock and What I realized about skateboarding and I didn't realize it at the time But I felt comfortable because it was this connection between being wildly creative and expressive punk rock

[00:38:44] spray paint building skate ramps with your hands and um and borrowed tools and then exploring the streets and defining Little little pieces of the concrete and the architecture that you would skate on like that was wildly creative and was also very athletic

[00:39:01] And also as you were describing, but I'll summarize it in one word skateboarding has this Subculture in a way that other sports don't yeah. Yes. There's a subculture of people who love football We all love football. Here's the football stats. Here's fantasy football. Yeah, but skateboarding

[00:39:17] There's the clothes. There's the music There's there's this the the e-thos either. There's the youth. There's the the rebelliousness of it like I don't worry You grew up in seattle, but um, you know in california coast

[00:39:30] Yeah, it was kind of made illegal for a while because kids were getting hurt So that made it more underground and then you know exports made it made it big again so so so again

[00:39:41] That you were looking for some kind of subculture as well that was creative connection as part of what I was seeking And an explanation of wait a minute. How can I I've been put in a box by my second grade teacher?

[00:39:52] I was happy to live there because I didn't know any better and Oh, then it's like you got a whiff of something that gave you a fuller picture And that connected more dots than you were able to connect on your own

[00:40:02] And while I tapped into that again, I was it as soon as it got to being able to go to college on a soccer scholarship That's you know skate scene sort of goes away It's never completely gone because it's a part of you

[00:40:14] Yeah, and it was for me But it put me at my point here is it put me on a really long detour Away from my creativity almost denying it In favor of where I was getting social and cultural acceptance And I went to college on a soccer scholarship

[00:40:29] But one of the top soccer schools in the country and I was on the olympic development team It happened to be a year where there weren't an olympics So I didn't didn't get to do that part of it

[00:40:37] But I was just rewarded and it was good enough to be able to make my way in that in that Area and then something really Horrible happened, which is my grandfather dropped dead of a heart attack No

[00:40:51] No foreseen like didn't have ailing health and you know just boom here one day gone And he had been he both he and my father had been hobbyist photographers And while I was doing those things skateboarding and playing soccer and football

[00:41:07] The things that I was getting some connection and or some acceptance for I remember being motivated and inspired by That this is a moment that will never happen again. It wasn't that was about me or my friends

[00:41:18] It was just I understood the language of photography as this a moment in time And it was a whole narrative in a single moment a thousandth of a second And when he died something happened and It was in that grief and in that Moment

[00:41:35] I think I was sort of cracked open enough to just take a beat even at 20 21 years old And evaluate my life just even even for a moment and these large moments in life the birth of a child the death of a

[00:41:52] A friend or a family member some trauma that you may have experienced yourself They can cause us to reflect and I think though they're very very useful um

[00:42:02] And yet I wish we didn't have to I wish we were able to be more in tune with ourselves on a regular basis Such that you could get this from a road trip or of a posse or some Some nice way to stumble into this information

[00:42:14] But for me, I was cracked wide open and that You know the cracking open of the heart it helps you understand things about yourself

[00:42:21] So it was there just long enough for me to acknowledge that I was denying what I now know is a very important part of myself Which is my creative self So that kicked me into pursuing photography. I was given his cameras

[00:42:33] I was willed his cameras. I had been basically creative curious um Photographically inspired because I'd been on the other side of the camera and was attracted to it and then Had got a little bit of money from his passing and his cameras and um

[00:42:51] I got it like a 14 stop plane ticket to europe with my then girlfriend now wife right in the backside of Of graduating college eight beans and tuna fish and lived out of a bag pack for Six months and taught myself how to take pictures

[00:43:04] And and when you say taught yourself like obviously you because you're going to so many places and you're you're You were on the move you weren't you didn't sign up for like, you know

[00:43:13] The school of photography and here's like courses monday wednesday and friday with this professor like you were What did you do? You just took pictures and how would you how would you um Do you know kind of the deliberate learning that as andrew's ericsson

[00:43:27] Cause it like who was giving you feedback on the picture so that you could then learn and then you repeat and and so on so my two biggest inputs were um One comparing my my work to the work of others

[00:43:41] And in europe I remember standing in front of Hundreds of magazine stands and looking at the work of the photographers that I admired that lined those pages of those art books and and and Magazines and saying wow my stuff is really it's a far cry from this

[00:43:57] And at the same time sharing it with my My then girlfriend now wife kate and because it was of us or she and I or her or a moment that we'd shared together There was an emotional connection So I got you know sort of both the technical

[00:44:11] understanding of like literally comparing my work to the work of People who were much further along in the process than I was and still getting some emotional validation that Images were more than technical they were they weren't about megapixels and dynamic range and perfect composition

[00:44:27] That there was some language some emotion that actually was arguably maybe as important or more important than the technical aspects so so two things to unpack there one is uh Mentorship is fine, but virtual mentorship also is fine

[00:44:41] In fact in some cases it's better because you could have thousands of virtual mentors and those were the people taking those photographs And those magazines. Yeah, this was the internet. This was an early. This was be internet before the internet was the magazine stand for me

[00:44:53] No, I I this is like i'm assuming this is like mid mid 90s That was kind of like I think the peak of magazine culture like all these indie but very you know high

[00:45:04] Production magazines like they were beautifully produced your name was out there. It was kind of like The movement from zines to actual magazines so zines was like in the 80s early 90s, but then they became

[00:45:16] glossy magazines in the mid 90s you're nailing the the cultural arc there and those both my wife and the the unadulterated Like non-judgmental emotional connection that reviewing my photos with her Created and then the technical aspect

[00:45:31] That combination was powerful and I used to literally so this was back in film So I would take a picture and I would literally write it down frame one F8 a 250th of a second You know st. Peter's Basilica cloudy day

[00:45:47] And then when I got the film developed, I would look at the picture You know here's frame one and then I would look at the exposure and like okay. Was this good?

[00:45:57] Did I nail it or what was I learning and so two things are true one how painful that was and if I understand if I skipped one frame All of my all of my information would be off

[00:46:09] Uh and to what does that mean if you skip one frame if I didn't write down if I forgot to write down one particular exposure then the rest of my um

[00:46:17] If I skipped one then I wouldn't have accurate information to then you know because you develop your film like sometimes weeks later And I would not be able to learn effectively if I didn't capture the right information and be able to look at

[00:46:33] Oh, this was a terrible picture It was really underexposed and then I go to look at my notes if I hadn't taken the right notes or put them in the right spot

[00:46:40] Then I wouldn't be able to learn from that experience. So it was very slow and painful very analog way of learning But that uh documentation is is really critical super critical

[00:46:50] so like for instance in in and I'll just say it as an analogy but uh in stand-up comedy you have to take Video of your performances because I'm there might be a time where I think man

[00:47:02] I did I did great, but then I'll watch the video and I'll see oh for some reason I'm hunched forward a little more than I should be it looks like I'm a little Nervous and now nobody seemed to pick up on that

[00:47:12] But the audience just like with photography the audience is an x-ray machine They know they know what's going on behind the scenes and they could They would just react better if my shoulders weren't hunched

[00:47:23] Now but the other thing I noticing what you said is you're you would get feedback You're you would see if these photographs would elicit an emotional reaction from Kate Which implies you have to have someone around you. You're not going to be defensive. You're going to trust

[00:47:39] Like if she said, ah, I don't feel it. You probably I don't know what What happened but my guess is you didn't argue with her No, you're like that's what I was looking for I was like because there is someone that trust you talked about

[00:47:51] Um and in the in the book. I really friend you didn't say like but but but Kate This is just the exact same as the other photograph that you did like what's the difference and and she would be like

[00:48:00] I don't know. It just doesn't feel the same. You wouldn't you wouldn't get into the don't know that rabbit hole No, because like I she is someone who's Wickedly creative in her own Expressional ways and I valued her opinion. I was really looking for that unadulterated unfiltered like

[00:48:16] How does this feel like when you just pick it up or connect with it? And It was the combination of again that technical but that emotional to realize that there's a relationship between them

[00:48:25] That sometimes you carry in a lot of emotional baggage both good and bad to looking at a picture or experiencing some art And just helped me understand that it was more complex than just Technique and I think this is this this is a really important point and

[00:48:38] While technique is sort of what I consider to get in the door fee Like you have to be able to put an exposure together That's good enough in a photograph to be able to see something on the film

[00:48:47] Beyond that it's less about all those other technical trappings and more about telling a story and making this connection That we talked about earlier with your subject and why I can look at that picture in a minute and say that's a powerful photograph

[00:49:00] So this this these two areas of feedback that I have and the fact that it was very slow going And then there was also a pain point involved like if I

[00:49:10] In order to develop the film we were very I mean it sounds luxurious because we were quote traveling in europe But we were literally eating cans of beans and there were days where I literally would not eat in order to

[00:49:21] In three days from now when we were in budapest to be able to develop film And you'd spend 20 bucks on the film development rather than eating and I recognize that this is that you know

[00:49:32] There's a certain amount of privilege to be able to say and do that and there are people who don't actually have food But for me that was my little universe and I would trade

[00:49:41] Food for the ability to learn and right now if you don't care if you don't you know give any cares about photography You'd say who would ever do that?

[00:49:50] This goes back to the earlier point we were talking about when you're doing the things that feel good to you where you're Creatively curious or you're finding an outlet for your expression That this doesn't seem like a big trade-off

[00:50:01] It doesn't seem like a big deal or where learning gets really easy for you because You're doing something that feels good and resonates internally to me That's there all these things are starting to dovetail for me

[00:50:12] You know you ask the question like what was it like to learn photography or to teach yourself To me this is the paradigm that we all are on in some way shape or form when we learn anything

[00:50:22] There's a little bit of curiosity you pull on the thread you learn a few things you get inspired or you learn a few things I didn't like this. I used to be an oil painter too freaking slow. I hated the Waiting for the paints to dry

[00:50:35] There's a lots of stuff that I so I only did that for a little while and then I You know you talked about your zigzag path and I got back on the path of photography and Whether you it's photography or cooking or building businesses

[00:50:46] I can look at a lens through this lens now and look backwards and connect the dots that this is the learning process And why aren't we taught That it's imperfect and non-linear and exploratory

[00:50:59] And that you are going to make mistakes along the way because if we were framed it like that We would be a much more willing to learn and be probably much more open to it So so so this is a couple things I want to ask there

[00:51:12] One is when when you're first starting anything that A you're passionate about and B is worth doing It's a hundred percent chance you're going to suck badly at the beginning. I would try to call permission to suck

[00:51:28] Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, you say embrace the suck. Yeah in this but there's also Part of the reason many people keep going. I think part of the reason why I kept going in writing is there's this bias called the dunning Kruger effect

[00:51:42] Which you you you tend to think you're better than you are at the thing you love And did you ever go through that? Did you find yourself like thinking and I'm the best photographer

[00:51:52] And I thought I was pretty good by the time of six months of traveling with my grandfather's camera and developing film, you know every other Every two three weeks and you know, and then you come back Um to have a camera equipment

[00:52:08] Yeah, and you come back to an area where you have more like a little bit more resources than I have when I was on the road in Europe like access to libraries and and more books around photography and technique and and

[00:52:20] importantly like how to figure out how to make some money doing this thing and you start to realize that All these other factors are factors that I had been ignoring and you know, this is like life

[00:52:30] Right the more it's like a language you feel like you can communicate and then you're like Oh, there's lots of different tenses to these verbs like every layer of the onion you peel peel back

[00:52:38] It's like there's a whole another world of learning. Well that happened to me with photography And part of how I think you know something is Something that you love is that either excites you or frustrates you and it can be a little tinge of frustration in the excitement

[00:52:53] Even if you if you love it, but there are also times you're like, okay I'm completely done. I do not need to spend another minute Learning to cook or painting with oils or whatever I'm fed up. I'm good

[00:53:03] But for me when I got back from that trip realized as you said the denning whatever effect Oh my god, I really actually suck I need to I need to keep doing this but I have energy and I see aptitude and opportunity and it brings me joy and

[00:53:19] You know attuning to these characteristics and not only our creative lives, but our lives in general like to me That's where the best stuff is and and I think Use the word joy. I think overall joy is more important than Let's say this kind of constant happiness

[00:53:40] So for instance if if I'm watching my favorite tv show I'll be constantly happy and then at the end of it I'll just have spent 300 hours watching my favorite tv show with nothing much to show for it

[00:53:51] But like if you're again if you're trying to get good at something that's difficult There's going to be a lot of points of Feeling horrible because you realize like you're looking at these photos in the magazines and then you're looking at your own photos

[00:54:04] There's at some point you're every now and then you're gonna say. Oh my gosh. I am horrible. I'm never going to be this good I'm disappointed in myself This is not worth it. I'm not happy because it can't be all joy

[00:54:16] I mean, it can't be all all fun or else you wouldn't try to get better For sure and us is also where you cited my my wife kate on this earlier But that's why community is so important

[00:54:27] And and having the right community for sure not just any community and finding a community where you both are welcomed and feel welcome and There are two sorts of community I talk about in the book

[00:54:39] One is the communities that you tap into that exist out in the world And another is a community that you start to build around your very own work And to me like you tap into other communities

[00:54:50] You know, I use my own examples to what we've already talked about the photography community and the action sports community And then there is a community of people who were action sports photographers So there's all kinds of communities and sub communities for you to tap into

[00:55:04] And and learn and get fat validation or support or criticism or all those things and all that is very very very useful when There's that gap that you recognize between where you are and where you want to be

[00:55:18] And you can get both encouragement and feedback and all those things from from those communities that exist And then there's also the work and the community that you start to build Or sorry, there's the community that you start to build around your work

[00:55:30] And at first it maybe it is just a community of two myself and my wife kate When we're back back and we didn't have any other audience. There were no other friends and no internet I wasn't showing it to the random strangers on the on the street

[00:55:43] And then that community when I got back expanded to include my parents and my friends and Etc etc etc etc and you start building a community around your work And this community doesn't have to be millions of people we can reference kevin kelly's

[00:55:56] article a thousand true fans if you have a thousand fans and in In your corner, you can basically make a living in a life doing what you love Uh, it doesn't mean you have to have millions of followers on instagram. What if you're a

[00:56:08] blacksmith in jackson hall wyoming Your community people who appreciate your work. Maybe is the 12 restaurant tours who you take care of their knives Whatever that whatever the size community is not about that

[00:56:20] But having a community to reduce all this last, you know, 90 seconds into how important community is To growth to connection and to our creativity And so so and and just to also reiterate what you said earlier I think every path is different like, uh my

[00:56:40] Entrance into writing for instance is different than your entrance into photography for sure there might be some intersection in terms of sacrifice because you always Because you're gonna you're about to embark on spending a lot of hours and something There's got to be some sacrifice in in exchange

[00:56:55] But my reasons for starting were very different and from continuing were very different I think also that's related to Does it matter what age you are like you could have started this journey today

[00:57:07] Yeah, you could start this journey. You mentioned someone who's 63 years old who starts their creative journey I don't think You know, there's all that saying the best time to start A new creative endeavor is 10 years ago and today

[00:57:22] Yeah, and I think that's really important to to to note and again as part of this mad libs approach to creativity but um You know the one thing about community though that i'm curious about when you start entering into the community of

[00:57:37] Photographers or if you're any creative and you start entering into the community of the creatives There's a danger point there too, which is You don't necessarily have the ability to judge If this particular group of creatives is good community for you or not

[00:57:53] You're not not entering just a community. You're entering a hierarchy where tribal animals Ranked from alpha to omega and so if you think to yourself, oh, well, I should be if this guy's getting published his photographs in this magnate. I should be and

[00:58:09] You know, there's a little bit of competition Not everyone has your best interest at heart And I could be telling my own story, but I have a feeling i'm telling every creative story You got to just be careful when you enter into any hierarchy

[00:58:21] There's there's a ranking and nobody not everybody wants you to immediately be the alpha for sure for sure And to me the the barometer there the liveness is how does it make you feel? I think that's really important and connection and And inspiration and a little grit

[00:58:39] Like those are all that's that really helpful alchemy those things and There are also communities that feel toxic and where and again, this is going to be up to each You know each their own but I think your point is super well taken that this is not

[00:58:55] Just sign up at the nearest community. These are it's not dissimilar to how to decide how to spend your time Like you want to spend your time doing things that you love around people that you like and

[00:59:05] With goals in mind that inspire you in the same as true with community I think this is such an important point because and I don't and and by the way, it's not

[00:59:14] I'm not saying this from the point of view of someone who who did it. I think I spent At least a good 12 to 15 years Not doing that not paying attention to how Certain people or situations made me feel and that threw me off

[00:59:30] Path now forza I was able to bring all those experiences eventually back onto the path, but they were certainly Experiences I could have avoided if I paid attention more to how different situations and people

[00:59:44] Made me feel and I was deluded by thinking okay. I have to be around these people because maybe there's Money and I have to take care of a family and I just again and again. I made the wrong decisions for myself uh, and

[01:00:01] It's my and the fault is not The fault really boils down to Not paying attention to how certain people made me feel or certain situations and it's not their fault It's my fault that I didn't pay more attention to this

[01:00:14] But I don't don't beat yourself up because we're taught culture that there is that the answers are out there And it's a very external and you get validated and you fit into tribes and all those other things and and I think that's part of

[01:00:26] Being awake enough to hear what we're supposed to be doing in our lives is a similar level of woke to How does something make us feel and we the reality is you know

[01:00:37] The science is pretty clear rational cognition relative to sort of intuition like rational is really slow and later They've loaded with biases and all these things that we we basically over index and give it give it too much credit

[01:00:50] And yet when you have a feeling about somebody sometimes you get proved wrong, but you know like it doesn't matter It's not really a matter of right or wrong is this person good or bad. It's just

[01:01:00] You should decide to spend time and energy on things that feel good and matter to you Rather than something that doesn't and if you're going to be too loud for some people You're going to be too fill in the blank for other people

[01:01:13] The challenge is understanding that those just then aren't your people And start to find who are your people And what can you do to trust that intuition to me? That's there's a handful of metaphors in the book some

[01:01:26] You know conceptual and others really like right on the nose and Two that come to mind are listening to this calling and it's not always some trumpet That's 10 feet in front of you. It's a whisper and that whisper is inside of you

[01:01:40] And it it doesn't look or feel like a map because a map shows you I'm here and I'm going to follow this path And I'm going to end up here It's way more a compass

[01:01:50] And a compass is just an arrow that gets you in a direction, right? It's it's it's I can't stand it like you're using all the words I use it is a compass And it is the compass is determined

[01:02:02] Oh, you step in this direction you feel it you step in this direction You don't feel it I think it's very for me. It was very hard to learn that compass now I feel a little bit more aware of it. Yeah, but that was a big difficulty

[01:02:14] Of mine and in you know, and that's and that's that balance of am I going for validation? Am I going for money? Am I going for internal? Improvement and skill acquisition and joy It was very hard for me to balance all of these things

[01:02:29] I'm going to tell a short story that sows together a couple of those things and My intuition so let's go back to my career as a photographer I was at the peak of my photographic career and it's as good

[01:02:40] It's better than you could possibly imagine when you're in the top Very teeny weeny percent of photographers. It is all of the travel all whatever you're thinking. It's better okay, I'll just say that and I was experiencing a little bit of burnout and

[01:02:58] I noticed something that was happening in culture and I had a Palm trio and the palm trio the newest one Was shipped with a camera and a little camera. It was point three mega pixels

[01:03:13] You really couldn't if you took a picture with the thing you could barely the resolution on the screen And and ultimately the camera was so bad You could sometimes not actually even be aware of what you took a picture of it just like a fuzzy thing

[01:03:24] But I started getting so much joy Of always having that camera in my pocket because it was my phone And you got to keep in mind I have hundreds of thousands of dollars of the very finest photographic equipment that you can possibly have in the world

[01:03:39] and I started getting joy from having a camera on me at all times and I could take pictures of The donut while I was waiting in line to get my morning coffee and just whatever inspired me when I saw the light

[01:03:50] And that's not something you get from carrying around a hundred thousand dollar digital hustle blood You have to like there's a whole crew that comes with that thing and you set it up and you have computers a month And it's just there's all this burden

[01:04:01] And I remember thinking You know one of the things I find so much joy in Initially it was the palm trio and then it was the razor and then it was the first iphone is Wow, like I'm not burdened with x y and z but

[01:04:17] You know what else this is never going to amount to anything because it's virtually useless this camera But it feels good. So I'm going to keep doing it go back to your compass story

[01:04:28] That ended up being one of my biggest professional both successes and failures of all time I did the first iphone app that allowed you to take a picture add a cool thing called a filter

[01:04:38] And share it to social media and it was the first photo feed in the best camera app I had to get special approval from apple to be able to send photos in real time out to an audience who would consume and view them

[01:04:50] And I it ended up being the app of the year in the apple. I store in itunes store in 2009 I sold millions of those things and they were three bucks a piece It was a money factory and most importantly

[01:05:03] It came from something that I was sure was going to be useless Because I had all these external beliefs of what was valuable and not valuable And I just decided in a rare whim of actually listening to myself that this felt good Yeah, because because you loved

[01:05:20] I mean Just think from the perspective of when you started imagine if you had something in your pocket that could take Amazing pictures like the phones we have now are probably as good as the equipment you you had 20 years ago or better

[01:05:32] I don't know for sure and and It was an amazing thing like people I started using Instagram which followed your app best best camera So so but it's interesting though because your your sense of Photography your expertise in it brought you to this use case for the world

[01:05:51] But you didn't have you hadn't racked up yet the Let's call it the 10,000 hours of business expertise. Sure, which is a common Thing, you know where you don't people don't even realize business is a skill, but it is and you made kind of

[01:06:08] The basic mistakes you can't even blame yourself, but but like what were some of the mistakes you made? most I mean again, we're saying the mistakes because A very similar app called instagram got sold for a billion dollars right after your thing disappeared

[01:06:23] Yep, right and and that's chronically in the book again This is part of like not trying to go plate my story My story is one of pitfalls and as all of our stories are

[01:06:33] But yeah, the mistakes that I ultimately made I don't even think I could have foreseen them because they were around very technical Contract elements about when you were going to do you were trying to write a contract today that was going to see what?

[01:06:49] Future versions of the software we're going to have to be like And so because software changes so much you can't realize that in two years I'm going to want to be able to follow and like my friends

[01:07:00] Because it's just you don't have it. You can't really see on the corner Social networks didn't really hadn't matured at that point. So I don't throw myself on a bus too hard and I think that's part of

[01:07:10] I definitely did make some very fundamental mistakes like I gave my um Even though contractually I owned the ip I had hired a developer and the software Well, I didn't have a copy of it on my own servers. This the software lived on their servers

[01:07:27] I used their apple iTunes account to publish the thing to the store. So I didn't actually get the metrics I got a check from them after they received a check from apple There's a bunch of little technical things that led to my demise

[01:07:41] um, and for that I'm both Not a billionaire and and disappointed But also like that's a learning experience that I was then able to leverage into creative live because I learned I learned a ton from that but the reason I went down this path and the story was

[01:07:57] This thing that I thought Was it couldn't amount to anything and yet I was obviously deeply intrigued at the intersection of creativity and technology and convenience and um, it it it was the intersection of all these things that I loved

[01:08:13] Especially relative to what I had grown reasonably bored with despite being at the top of my profession And I just pursued it anyway out of because it felt good It was the compass that said when I did this I felt better

[01:08:25] I remember intellectualizing that ah nothing can really come of this And yet it was arguably one of my biggest professional successes to sort of be a pioneer in mobile photography. So so You know, it seems like the crit the there's several critical things one is

[01:08:41] finding where your compass is pointing um Building up the basic skills which you discuss a lot in the book like how you can do that like You know find the photographers you admire You can start their work. Yeah Yeah, find the the the things you like to photograph

[01:08:58] The the very question you asked me when we when we first met the what what do I like to look at? That's probably what I would like to photograph giving yourself kind of increasing challenges Um for you going into, you know extreme action sports scenarios

[01:09:12] Where nobody else will go taking those photographs. You go to the place Lee's crowded That's where you're going to be the best as you develop these skills Uh and then you know seeing where it takes you but I'm always intrigued

[01:09:24] But oh, and you know again finding the community of people you can learn from and and benefit from But I'm always wondering like let's say someone's listening to this They're 40 50 60 years old they want and they they've kind of Maybe for whatever reason good or bad

[01:09:40] Blocked out or not listen to that inner flame or that that compass. Yeah How do you how do you start to listen to it when when it's been so long? Right. First of all, you're not alone

[01:09:51] That's the thing that you need to know is that there are more people that are like you than are not like you That denied this part of themselves or that Ischuted because it was not practical And I'm here to tell you that Creativity is the most practical

[01:10:08] Lever that you have in your life Again, it can it can unlock um Areas of life that you didn't know or existed it can help personally transform you to me Creativity is so fundamental. It's as fundamental as exercise or nutrition, right? and we're creating machines and by

[01:10:26] Not even acknowledging that you are creative and that you have agency over what you do and don't do And how you spend your time or don't spend your time you You sort of cram down and ignore

[01:10:38] That beautiful sixth grade or that sorry first grade six year old self that said I want to come up with the front of that room and draw a picture And it's not just that you suppress it and nothing happens. That's sort of eats away at you

[01:10:50] It's because we're fundamentally human creating machines So by telling people that they're not alone. This is a this is a lie that you were sold A long time ago when it wasn't convenient for culture. It was inconvenient for it to have a bunch of wildly creative

[01:11:05] uh people who question the status quo and so we had we had a school system We had an employment system that were different It's fine. I'm just here to say that now Even though you're not alone Now is the right time and it this does not mean

[01:11:21] Giving up, you know, you have to move into a different house or move to paris or get a new set of friends That is the wrong vision that you have of creativity

[01:11:29] What creativity means is acknowledging that you're a creator and that you can put two more things together To form something that's new and useful and reality says you do it every single day

[01:11:39] You're just not acknowledging it. So the first thing I want you to do is to call yourself a creator Words matter and if you understand that you say, oh, I'm not really all that creative

[01:11:48] That's fine. Maybe you think of yourself as a math head, but just so you know math is wildly creative Wildly creative science all sciences like the wheel is mechanical engineering plus creativity Like we've just been fed a definition that creativity equals painting

[01:12:06] And that's not the case. So one when you start to thinking of yourself as this infinite creative superpower You've got this little core of creative plutonium in you and you just really haven't used that

[01:12:17] What's cool is the this is the one resource. This is a ripoff of a Maya Angelou quote Where the more you use the more you get It's not something that's depleted. It's something that's empowered And if you can start to think about that doesn't matter if you're 1835 55 or 95

[01:12:32] Like acknowledging and putting that creative muscle to work Is it becomes effective today the first time you do it a second time? You've seen a benefit from creativity even if you took a step backwards because you're exercising the muscle that ultimately will shape

[01:12:47] Your life so so so you know and this goes along with what you're what you say throughout the book Which is daily and you really cement this at the end but daily creativity doing something that You consider

[01:13:00] Creative more creative than your normal output doing something every single day. That's creative What would be if someone again is just clueless on Where the compasses point them they want to know they're listening to they want to know

[01:13:12] What are some things they can try what are what let's call them experiments What are some experiments or ways to think about experiments depending on how abstract we want to get that someone can do today Sure, so I would actually bet that 90

[01:13:25] I'm gonna go out on a limb and say 90 of the people listening right now have taken a photograph With their phone in the past 24 maybe 48 hours And it might even have been taking a picture of your a receipt to submit for your expense report at Deloitte

[01:13:41] If you thought of that even for a moment That what i'm doing right now is choosing this thing. I'm choosing to take a photograph and express myself

[01:13:51] If you can take you can lift that phone up from that receipt and take a picture of anything within your field of view Do it with a little bit of intention That will create that is a little creative moment that you are choosing

[01:14:01] And again, that might not be your ultimate creative expression But what that will do is realize that you just made a choice And that in that choice you have agency and in agency you can see that you could do this again and again

[01:14:11] So you don't have to look far when you're preparing a meal for your family tonight and you're tired You got on from work kids are hungry the whatever you know narrative that each of us have

[01:14:21] If you think of that as an opportunity to just do one thing a little different to add one little special either spice or presentation or You can get joy from that and that is that is just awakening that muscle

[01:14:34] And then if you decide that I get more joy from cooking unless from photography or more joy from playing the guitar than I do from coding Then start to do more of the thing that brings you joy and

[01:14:47] What i'm hearing right now in someone's mind in I think it's in indiana They're saying I don't have time. I've got the kids. I've got I got no extra time in my day Great What are you doing like cooking?

[01:15:00] You do you do you have to provide for your family and put food on the table? Yeah, great There's no extra time involved. This is a mindset shift You can acknowledge that instead of just making the craft macaroni and cheese out of the box

[01:15:12] Maybe you went to the store and you bought some special pasta or maybe even gasp You made your own pasta My belief is that the kids are probably going to say wait a minute. I like the craft better

[01:15:23] But your husband your partner or on your own you can say, you know what that was I brought me joy And I don't know I'm not trying to be prescriptive what the joyful thing is

[01:15:32] I'm saying that if you can find those things it doesn't actually take extra time It takes just an awareness and a mind shift that you can start to immediately get value you know

[01:15:45] I can't believe I just got the sign to rap j. Have we actually been going for 90 minutes? Oh my gosh, there's so much stuff. I want to cover Yeah, that's good. Let's let's make a lot of value in this last 10 minutes

[01:15:59] Let me see. I'm gonna I'm gonna look I I've got on things underline. I got things folded Um, well while you're looking for a thing james that is in the book You're flipping through I want to say that before we recorded and you said

[01:16:12] Like I look at you as wildly creative. You're an amazing writer You've mastered that stand-up comedy. You've built businesses business after business And that the book resonated with you as like there's like truth in here to me that That's helpful. I really appreciate it

[01:16:28] I thought this was almost like like even when you use words like compass which I've Used as well. I felt like this was an outline for how I've approached my creative efforts Uh, you know one thing that you write about that's really interesting

[01:16:43] Is what you call rejection therapy like kind of trying to do things that are going to Get you rejected because a you build up that muscle of being able to handle rejection and perhaps learn from it but I think also

[01:16:58] If you're trying to be creative at something and you want to there's no shortcuts But I'm gonna say if you want to skip the line and ability. You don't want to take the safe path you want to go

[01:17:10] Where it's if you were given the choice to do this or to do another Thing with your creativity. You would take the harder choice. So in comedy You know the a night of stand-up comedy is usually seven-way comedians perform

[01:17:23] The third spot the fourth spot the audience is warmed up. They're not too drunk There's not so much noise. They're ready for you. The worst spot is called the check spot. It's towards the end It's they're tired. They're drunk. Yeah, so they're all talking to each other

[01:17:38] Rather than listening to you and you have to Perform and you get crushed if they don't laugh, but they're not going to laugh. They're figuring out their tips. They're doing math so So the way

[01:17:48] To get better is to always take the check spot or to perform after the world famous comedian You perform after Jerry Seinfeld. No one cares about you. They're thinking about Jerry Seinfeld

[01:18:00] So if you're given the choice, do you go before or do you go after you go after because that's where you're going to learn Is those challenges and I'm just mentioning I think we all want to

[01:18:09] Improve as fast as possible, but it's not easy. You have to do these very specific hard challenges You have to plan on you have to plan what's going to be The challenge and what I do next if I just write an article like oh this this this

[01:18:24] If it's the same as everyone else is it's not going to improve me If it's something that i'm afraid to publish that will Probably improve me if it's if it's time. I'm afraid to perform if it's a speaking engagement

[01:18:36] I'm afraid to do because it's an audience. I have no experience with Those are the things that will improve me and i'm just curious. Yeah, you're you're you're a take on that so I think um being Willing to be uncomfortable is a huge

[01:18:56] Opportunity and it's for all the reasons that you just cited and I think just generally we have a biology That is doing two things one. It's out there to make us alive not happy

[01:19:08] And two it's designed to keep us safe. So it's always dragging us. No, no, no You don't want to do that. No, no, no, no, no, you really don't want to be uncomfortable It's just dragging you right back to the middle

[01:19:18] Right, yeah, right you have this like surge in cortisol It's just actually painful and and there's only Two ways to solve that surge one is to give up that is there's no

[01:19:30] Problem, you don't have to have that cortisol just give up and the other is to kind of do it and get good at doing it. Yeah, and you know, I think Under recognizing that going out and doing the stand-up in the check spot

[01:19:45] It's not it's not like what your biology is fighting against is a saber-tooth tiger And there is no saber-tooth tiger at the camp comedy club if people are not laughing Hysterically at your joke because they're doing math around what the tip they're going to give to the server

[01:19:59] Like that isn't about you necessarily and it's certainly not about a tiger This is about being willing to make yourself uncomfortable and to develop that Muscle that habit of being willing to do it over and over and over and that is

[01:20:12] Certainly a mechanism for quick growth as you talked about where did you do it in photography? I did shows way before I was ready to do shows. I put my work on the walls of coffee shops that would Anyone who'd give me the time of day I did

[01:20:30] Slide shows I held very public slide shows at a time where my work was very Immature and I don't mean that in like a child childless But just like not mature as in development as an artist and all of those things

[01:20:42] They both came with joy of doing something and some rejection Um, and you know, there's a countless examples in my past. I think You know part of what I tell the story in the book about a guy named Jia Zhang and

[01:20:56] He's written a book and he had a very really really cool angle at this was he um He found rejection professionally after a series of just crushing defeats in at his startup and

[01:21:10] Set out to cultivate he calls rejection therapy and the book chronicles this little story and he goes He I think it's I forget how many days in a row. It's maybe a hundred days of rejection I think that might might have been his chronicle of it and

[01:21:23] He does things like ask He tried to get tries to get rejected every day and it gets so absurd that people are saying yes To the most absurd things that he can possibly make up of which he asked a cop if he could drive the cop car

[01:21:36] And the cop said yes, he asked Crispy cream donuts is like I really like the donuts here But you know it is the olympics right now and I was wondering could you make me the five? Olympic ring donuts in the right colors and the person was like, um

[01:21:51] One got the manager and they did it Like like these things these are crazy things and so it does two things one It's really the asking that makes us uncomfortable or in Jia Zhang's case asking to drive the police car because you think

[01:22:03] Am I going to get arrested? Am I gonna do and then when things start actually happening for you You got the benefit of both you got the benefit of making yourself so uncomfortable that you're asking a cop if you can drive his car

[01:22:13] And you realize that people want to help you when you do crazy shit And then that result also Is creative yeah, and it's I got to drive a cop car and then write about it and then write a book about it

[01:22:26] Right for sure. And so, you know, I think For me that is like rejection therapy and getting comfortable being uncomfortable Like I take ice baths every morning if I'm at my helmet Seattle I have a cold plunge where I get in it and it's 50 degrees or 40 something degrees

[01:22:41] And I don't do that. I mean sure there's all kinds of other benefits and you can talk to Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss about that I do it because it's like every morning. Am I willing to be uncomfortable for like five minutes? And if like this morning

[01:22:54] Turn on you take a hot shower do what you need to do clean and then just cold and it's I never am like, you know what? I can't wait for that cold water

[01:23:02] But I do it every day because it's just a reminder that being uncomfortable in small ways You know builds that muscle of being uncomfortable in large ways so Chase I feel like we could talk for hundreds of hours about this. This is like kind of understanding

[01:23:21] the DNA of creativity and learning and this compass that we discussed is like I'm obsessed with this topic Mostly because I think I ignored it for so many years and I was just so miserable James. We've done that time

[01:23:34] We all have and that's like I don't want anyone to feel bad for a second I mean we all can look at our past and say oh man, we have to appear in here and here and here

[01:23:41] It's not too late and you're living proof of it. You're living proof of it You've started like starting stand-up comedy like we're sitting here in the club. It's amazing It's inspirational as hell That's like I'm I want to support you because I see you doing those things

[01:23:54] Like zha zha and I want to make those donuts for you I want to come show up at your stand-up because you're doing something that makes you uncomfortable And the fact that you have had the success you've had and you're still looking backwards

[01:24:04] That tells me that we're all always going to be wanting and wishing a little bit more It's never too late to start and the only thing you can do wrong is to deny that that's a part of you

[01:24:14] And you're not denying it. So this bump and thank you for being a huge inspiration to me man Well, thank you chase for uh coming on the show and the book is creative calling by chase Jarvis

[01:24:24] The subtitle establish a daily practice infuse your world with meaning and succeed and work and life Again, the book is creative calling. I think this is like a bible of I do think it's like a blueprint to

[01:24:38] Creativity and thanks for writing in thanks for coming on the show